NASH: Trump’s Attack on Video Games Could Lose Him a Substantial Youth Base

One-third of young voters supported President Trump during the 2016 presidential election, but Trump’s recent attempts to blame video games for violence could lose them.

The president held a meeting, Thursday, which included leading figures in the gaming industry, as well as members of Congress and conservative activists — notably including Dave Grossman, an infamous activist in the anti-video game lobby.

The meeting, according to White House spokesman Lindsay Walters, discussed “violent video-game exposure and the correlation to aggression and desensitization in children,” and following the meeting, a video appeared on the official White House YouTube channel titled, “Violence in Video Games.”

The one and a half minute compilation featured various violent scenes from popular video games, ranging from the Call of Duty series to Fallout 4.

Over 39,000 users disliked the video against less than 1,300 likes at the time of writing.

It wasn’t the first incident of President Trump attempting to link violence in video games to real-world violence, with the president declaring last month, “I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts… I look at some of the things [my son Barron is] watching, and I say, how is that possible?”

Despite being fact-checked by Breitbart Tech, who disproved the president’s claims and pointed to scientific evidence that proves there is no basis “to claims that on-screen violence leads to real-world violence, like school shootings,” the president has been insistent with his allegations, which could prove costly with his younger supporters.

Though it could be argued that the 39,000+ dislikes on the White House’s video were from anti-Trump protesters expressing a general discontent with the administration, it should be noted that most other videos on the White House’s account with the same number of views do not share a similar dislike-to-like ratio.

The White House’s most popular video on YouTube, “2017 Christmas Decorations at the White House,” has more likes than dislikes (37,000 likes against 25,000 dislikes.

“President Trump Delivers Remarks at CIA Headquarters,” “President Trump Holds a Press Conference,” “2017 National Christmas Tree Lighting,” “President Trump and PM May Joint Press Conference,” and even, “The Inauguration of the 45th President of the United States,” also have more likes than dislikes, disproving claims that the overwhelming amount of dislikes on the White House’s video game violence video are from general anti-Trump protesters expressing discontent with unrelated affairs.

In an article this week, Vox cited numerous examples of #GamerGate activists — a movement frequently cited by the mainstream media as having been the prelude to Trump’s online support, now expressing dissatisfaction with the president.

“I don’t even know what the fuck he’s doing at this point,” complained one user, gaining 157 likes, while another proclaimed, “Someone wake up Jack Thompson. Apparently we’re looping back to the 1990’s.” Jack Thompson achieved notoriety as a campaigner against video games in the late 1990s.

“Trump is starting to use the same tactics Sarkeesian has used so I’m 100% against him on this issue,” added one user, comparing President Trump to the left-wing social justice feminist Anita Sarkeesian. “Trying to see how this all pans out, but if he starts screwing up badly enough, I won’t vote for him or support him again.”

The comment received nearly 200 likes, a reflection of the popularity of the sentiment.

“This is coming from a big time Trump supporter… Trump has garnered, on top of his new right young MAGA base, a strong support from older conservatives and now he’s pissing off both… This is just a huge blunder by him,” another post expressed, while other posts admitted confusion as to why President Trump was alienating such a prominent base: “If only Trump realized how beneficial Gamergate was to his platform. Not that it was too significant, but goddamn did the left push so many gamers away so quickly.”

Last year, Breitbart Tech senior reporter Allum Bokhari wrote, “We already know that GamerGate pushed voters to the right: previously left-leaning gamers became massively disillusioned with both the political left and the mainstream media.”

Bokhari went on to add that if certain data was correct, then “the [GamerGate] controversy was also of particular interest to a demographic that was key to Trump’s victory.”

“Given the razor-thin margins of the president’s victory in some states, that’s pretty staggering to think about,” he declared.

So, given the traditional support for President Trump from gamers, who became disillusioned with the left-wing and their recurring attacks on video games over political correctness, Trump’s own attacks on gaming could very well lose him integral youth support — who not only vote, but also create and distribute digital content, such as the wildly popular “Can’t Stump the Trump” YouTube series, which received millions of views and influenced other content creators as well as viewers to support the Make America Great Again movement.

A key statistic from the 2016 presidential election is that 32 percent of young voters who voted for Trump were reportedly excited about their vote, versus just 18 percent of young Hillary Clinton voters.

“Trump is about to piss off the same gamers who helped put him in office,” remarked the Outline last month — a headline which was almost correct.

These gamers are already pissed off. It’s now just a matter of whether they will continue to support the president if his war on video games continues, and judging by the evidence, it is highly unlikely.